BA/BS in Biophysics

This major sits where physics meets the life sciences, with additional input from chemistry, mathematics, computing and engineering. The Physics Department runs it jointly with Biology and Chemistry, so students move between laboratories and classrooms in all three areas. The guiding idea is that living systems can be understood through careful measurement. Students learn to gather data from cells, tissues or molecules, to help build tools that open up questions once out of reach, and to state hypotheses in compact mathematical terms that experiments can either support or refute. They also learn to propose theories that tie varied biological observations together. Recent technical advances have produced enormous new datasets in biology, and physics has contributed much of the equipment behind them. The program is meant for students who expect to enter laboratory research, medical research or clinical practice, all of which rely more and more on quantitative reasoning.